Hanging with the homemade Baja Racer

Top Gear tackles a 75-foot jump in the Rally Fighter, a buggy conceived and built by the public

The suspension, which looks like it should
be holding up a bridge somewhere, is the same mega-trick Fox set-up used on the
rabid Ford Raptor pickup, with 46cm of travel at the front and 51cm at the
rear, or roughly the same as most Trophy trucks.

The ride height is manually
adjustable between two positions. And the engine, in this prototype, is a BMW
diesel straight-six lifted from a 335d, but the first production versions are
going to be fitted with a 430bhp petrol-powered LS3 V8 E-Rod engine, GM's
customer-spec engine used by hot rodders nationwide. As much as I like the
unlikely diesel option - and there will be another BMW one later, Jay confirms
- the GM unit feels like it will be the right engine for a car like the US
Rally Fighter. A car for red-blooded, petrol-powered thrill-seekers, if ever
there was one.